Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Only if it's a fancy business lunch or something! Otherwise, I couldn't care less whether I'm eating with guys or gals...and on a date, I figure if he's worth keeping, he's going to find out sooner or...well, sooner...that I like food, so why bother faking something for no reason?

I'm going to say the first thing that comes to mind at the moment, because if i stop to think about it, I'll probably have a whole list...the plain (no chocolate, sprinkles, or powdered sugar) mini-doughnuts from the Daily Dozen Doughnut Company in Pike Place Market. I've only been to Seattle once, but I remember those doughnuts--amazing, tasty little treats. Yum!

I love meat a LOT, but I do enjoy eating vegetarian even now and then, although usually it's a retrospective sort of doing so (i.e. "huh, nothing I ate today had meat in it. Cool."). In the same way, my favorite meatless meals are the ones where meat would actually make it taste *less* good. Fettucine alfredo for one, or a concoction that I whipped up for Tet one year—caramelized firm tofu, long beans, candied walnuts, black soba noodles, soy sauce, hoisin sauce. Mmmmm...

I've sadly had a few of those myself...sigh. And I tend to eye the instant miso offerings in the supermarket with a mixture of hope, yearning, and deep suspicion, but now, thanks to you, I don't have to! XD I'll make sure to pick up a few packets of Sushi Chef next time I get the chance...and perhaps some Hiraki as well, when I get the soup craving without the sushi. (:

Don't forget Vietnamese (as a cuisine that uses tofu as a real ingredient rather than a substitute)!

I get a small headache every time someone starts going off on how much they hate tofu, simply based on its prevalence as a "not-meat." I mean, I agree that the word "tofurkey" makes me cringe, I just feel bad that here are people who have decided not to even try it in East Asian restaurants because of the prevailing idea of what it is and what it's to be used for. Which means that there are people out there who will never know the serious deliciousness of, say, silky ginger tofu...well, more for us!

Nick-I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm on your side here. I don't see these people raising their own cows and growing their own grain for bread, etc, so who knows how many steps their precious food goes through before it gets to their mouth?

The more important question here, however, is this: Why was this argument started in the first place? Either because Simon is a hopeless pedantic for pure semantics, or because the idea that something is "processed" offends him somehow. Just because something is processed doesn't mean it's evil, OR necessarily unhealthy--but you notice he's not arguing on that point, he's attacking your term so that he can justify liking a certain kind of food without having to admit to eating "processed" food.

That's the kind of thinking that makes people plunk down money to fund elitist places like Organique that make their living out of customers who are that easily frightened by the fact that we are not living in the Stone Age. Granted, I'll bet the owners and operators of the place suffer from the same delusion, but really! Give me a break!